Report of a Series of Sittings
with Rudi Schneider by Lord Charles Hope Reproduced
from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
Vol. 41, 1932-33, pp.284-291.

III. BY LORD CHARLES HOPE.

Since the sittings here reported on there
has been published Mr Harry Price's An Account of some further
Experiments with Rudi Schneider,being a report on twenty-seven
sittings held in the National Laboratory of Psychical Research from
February to May 1932. Readers of the present report will probably be glad
to have some comments on Mr Price's book.

The preface begins, "The Council of the
National Laboratory of Psychical Research has pleasure in submitting to
its Members . . ." It would appear, however, from a joint manifesto signed
by most of the active members of Mr Price's Council, which was published
in Light on 7 April 1933, and from a letter written the previous
week by H. G. Bois, the acting President, that these members were ignorant of the charge of fraud to be made against
Rudi, and therefore the responsibility for the whole report must rest
solely upon Mr Price.

It must be clear to anyone reading the
report that conflicting opinions are in evidence. On the one hand all the
notes made during the sittings, both those where Mr Price was present and
those from which he was absent, tend, without exception, to confirm the
genuineness of the phenomena witnessed, such notes having all, I think,
been dictated by Mr Price, whenever he was present, while the sitting was
in progress. On the other hand all the comments, deductions and
conclusions by which Mr Price supplements the actual notes are written in
such a way as to throw the maximum of doubt on all the phenomena witnessed
during this series of sittings. Readers of the report will ask themselves
the reason for the divergence between the impressiveness of the phenomena
as recorded in the notes, and the sweeping charge of fraud brought forward
by Mr Price against the medium.

It is evidently Mr Price's own wish that
attention should be concentrated on the particular section of the report
in which Rudi is accused of fraud, if one may judge from the statements
made by him in the popular press just before the publication of the
report. I will therefore go straight to that section.

At the sitting of 28 April 1932 Rudi was
controlled by Mr Price, Mrs De Gernon acting as second controller and,
though this is not stated, as interpreter, Mr Price knowing little or no
German.

The method of controlling Rudi during these
sittings was the usual one: the medium and the controller sit facing each
other, the controller holding the medium's hands with his own hands and
clasping the medium's knees between his own knees. The second controller,
whose chief function is to connect the medium with the chain of sitters,
and who, like all the other sitters, also faces in the direction opposed
to that of the medium, holds the latter's right wrist in his own hand. The
medium's right hand is thus held by both controllers, his left one by the
chief controller alone.

Frequently, sometimes for many consecutive
minutes, the medium puts up his left hand, which continues to be held by
the controller, and strokes the arm or leg of one of the controllers to "gather the force."
From time to time, usually when a phenomenon is
expected, "Olga" (the medium's trance personality) asks the sitters to
hold tight. This request, though addressed to the sitters rather than the
controller, naturally makes all present "hand-conscious," the controller
as well as the sitters. The same reaction, in the case of careful sitters,
follows the announcement or actual occurrence of a phenomenon.

In these conditions of control there took
place during the sitting of 28 April 1932, the following series of
events, which I abridge from
p. 147 of Mr Price's report.

10.50. The flashlight has suddenly gone
off—but a second flash has gone off immediately after—evidently the
second
bulb hung fire. . . .

10.59. Olga says that the power is getting
stronger. . . .

10.0. Olga tells us to hold tight.

11.1. Again we are told to hold tight."

There were, to quote Mr Price (p. 145), "three cameras in position. . . . All these cameras are exposed
simultaneously if handkerchief is moved by normal or supernormal means"
—that is, the cameras stood with lenses uncovered ready to record
whatever the flashlights disclosed as soon as any movement of the
handkerchief set off the flashlights. Mr Price reproduces certain
photographs (Plates XVIII-XXI) stated by him to have been taken by the
flashlight at 10.59. From these it appears that Rudi's left hand, which
ought to have been held by Mr Price, was, during one of the two flashes,
uncontrolled and behind the medium.

These photographs were, to continue Mr
Price's narrative (p. 152), developed by him the following morning
(29 April 1932) in Rudi's presence. "When I removed them from the fixing
bath I saw immediately what had happened. When I confronted Rudi with the
evidence, he did not know what to say.... I formally charged him with
having freed his arm and suggested his having moved the handkerchief from
the counterpoise himself. He made no reply.
This conversation took place
in the presence of Miss Beenham, the secretary."

Rudi denies that any charge was made, and in
the conflict of evidence between Mr Price and him, Rudi's denial is
supported by subsequent letters from Mr Price to him, which I have seen,
the tone of these being hardly reconcilable with Mr Price's statement.

To the comments Mr Price makes and the
conclusions he draws from these photographs I will return later.
I now
continue the narrative so as to gratify the reader's natural curiosity as
to whether Mr Price's colleagues in this investigation formed the same
opinion as he did from these photographs, when he communicated his
discovery to them. The answer is that they formed no opinion, because Mr Price made no communication about
the photographs to them, then or for many months later. Not even Mrs De Gernon, the sub-controller, was informed.
Yet if the other sitters on 28
April had been shown these photographs soon after they were developed, and
questioned as to what exactly they had observed at or about the time of
the two flashes, some material fact helping to elucidate the episode might
have been brought to light.

Two further sittings of the same series were
held. It was obviously important that the persons present at those
sittings should be specially warned to be on their guard in case a similar
incident recurred; but no hint of any suspicious occurrence at an earlier
sitting was given them, nor was any attempt made to take further
photographs. Not even Captain Cochrane-Baillie, who had been present on 28
April and was the controller at the sitting of 3 May, was taken into Mr
Price's confidence.

No hint was given to those who had financed
the series of sittings then closing of any suspicious incident having
recently occurred, and later in the summer, when Mr Price again sought
financial support from some of us for a proposed further series of
sittings to be held in the autumn of 1932, he omitted to mention the
photographs in question. Later those of us who subscribed towards the cost
of the publication of his report were not informed that in it any
accusation of fraud was to be made against Rudi.

Most of the members of Mr Price's Council
learnt for the first time of the charges to be brought in the report from
a sensational newspaper article appearing ten months after the sitting.

Not that Mr Price was silent as to the
result of these sittings. In several newspaper articles written by him
between the close of these sittings and the publication of his report
he wrote in eulogistic terms of Rudi and his phenomena. In the Empire
News for 8 May 1932 he says, "For three years he has been under
laboratory tests in England and France and has emerged unscathed from his
very strenuous ordeals," and again in Light of 20 May 1932 he
writes, "This is the third time he [Rudi] has been in England, and on
each occasion he has added to his laurels. For three years Rudi has been
subjected to the most stringent laboratory tests in England and France and
has passed every one with flying colours."
Other statements by Mr Price to
the same effect, some written more recently, might be quoted.

In the autumn of 1932 Rudi returned to
London for the sittings reported in the earlier part of this paper,
sittings held quite independently of Mr Price. Early in 1933
Ibegan putting together the records of those sittings, and towards the end
of February Rudi went to Paris for a joint investigation by the Institut
Métapsychique and the S.P.R.: in this also Mr Price had, of course, no
part. Then and not till then did Mr Price spring his
mine. The Sunday Dispatch of 5 March 1933 was his chosen vehicle
for informing his colleagues and financial supporters of 1932, and
simultaneously the uninformed public, that ten months earlier he had
caught Rudi faking phenomena.

Mr Price cannot complain if in the
circumstances stated above this belated "exposure" is received with
reserve. The lapse of time prevents the recollections of the other sitters
on 28 April 1932 being usefully invoked to confirm or refute Mr Price's
version of what happened at it. This would be of little importance if Mr
Price's case were of the kind which carried in itself instant conviction.
It all depends on the photographic control installed by Mr Price, and
unfortunately this proved to be defective at the very same moment that Mr
Price's manual control was defective. The third camera, too, failed to
record the incident. Mr Price informs us (p. 150) that the "plate
in the overhead stereoscopic camera was fogged by the light of the flash
striking the lenses."

This is unfortunate, as it would perhaps
have enabled us to judge more accurately the position of the medium's free
arm at the moment of the flash; in the existing photographs this is by no
means clear. Instead, therefore, of a clear and unambiguous photographic
record, we have, as Mr Price says (p. 150), "two photographs, the one
superimposed on the other.' This is certainly true, but he goes on to
make an assertion unwarranted by the photographs themselves, or any other
evidence. "The first flash caught
Rudi's left arm as it was held straight
out behind him: the second flash ignited when the medium had got
into position again."

It is essential to Mr Price's case that he
should establish that things happened in that order. If it was the
second flash which showed Rudi's arm free, then the suggestion that he
moved the handkerchief with his free hand and arm, and in so doing set off
the first flash, falls to the ground. The photographic experts whom I have
consulted seem to be agreed that, where a plate has been subjected to
double exposure, it is impossible to tell with certainty from the
resulting negative which of the two images was taken first.
When Rudi is
in a trance, he is, it seems, very sensitive to white light and is apt to
give a sudden convulsive movement when any such light shines upon him.In this case such a movement might easily have resulted in his tugging
away his wrist from the controller's grasp.

Unfortunately, on that occasion, Mr Price,
who, to quote his own words (p. 151), "really was not in a fit state to
control," was acting as controller and his recollections, in the
circumstances, can be of no value.

The internal evidence of the photographs
being ambiguous, we must next consider what support Mr Price's view of the
incident receives from the notes of the sitting, the
material parts of which I have already quoted. It appears from these that
at 10.41 Mr Price, as controller, was definitely holding the medium's
hands, and that at 10.44, 10.46 and 10.49 he could hardly have helped
knowing whether or not he was holding the medium, since at those times
there were either phenomena or an injunction to hold tight. Nevertheless
we are told that one minute later, at 10.50, the medium had got his hand
out of Mr Price's control without Mr Price's knowledge, and had faked at
least one phenomenon. By 10.59, or 11.0 at the latest, Mr Price must again
have become "hand-conscious."

Altogether phenomena were reported as
occurring on at least twenty occasions that evening, and Mr Price suggests
they may all have been faked as, he alleges, that occurring at 10.50 was
faked. What was Mr Price doing with his right hand while all this was
happening? It must be remembered that the usual method of evading
hand-control was not possible here, for there was nobody on Mr Price's
right, and hence nobody whose hand could be mistaken for Rudi's.
Are we to
believe that twenty times during that evening alone Rudi freed his left
hand from Mr Price's right hand without MrPrice knowing it, and that twenty times he succeeded in
getting it back into Mr Price's hand, also without Mr Price's knowing it?
Or that Mr Price for minutes together, even hours, was holding nothing in
his right hand and making no effort to find Rudi's left wrist?
I find
either of these suppositions incredible in a man of anything like Mr
Price's experience.

Again, are the distances such as to make Mr
Price's accusation plausible? The chair of the medium (A) and the
position of the table (B) on which was the handkerchief were as shown on
this sketch: (To be added)

The distance between the table and the
nearest point of the medium's chair is given on p. 192 of the report as 2
ft. 5 ins. The position of the medium's chair was in no way fixed, but
from a subsequent examination of the room I am convinced that usually the
distance was at least 2 ft. 10 ins.

In any case, however, two inches must be
added for the distance the handkerchief was from the edge of the table.
Rudi's legs and knees were at the time of the movement of the handkerchief
in their normal position between the controller's legs: this is clear
from the photographs. Only the upper part of his body, therefore, was
capable of any appreciable movement. Rudi is rather
below the average height. Could he, while his legs were immobilised, twist
sufficiently round to enable his left hand to move an object at least 2
ft. 7f ins. from the right side of his chair? And all this is supposed to
have been done without exciting the suspicions of either the principal or
second controller!

It must be remembered, too, that some of the
phenomena recorded as happening, both at the sitting of 28 April and at
other sittings, must have occurred considerably further from the medium's
chair than the handkerchief phenomenon could have been.

The suggestion made (p. 153) that at the
sitting of 28 April the medium was not "in an abnormal state" (meaning, presumedly, a state of trance) need not be taken seriously, since Mr Price
was evidently in an unusual state himself, being (p. 151) "thoroughly ill
that evening and in agony with an abscess," and his powers of perception
must have been at a low ebb. Moreover nothing unusual as regards the
medium's state was recorded in the notes.

When (p. 155) Mr Price implies that Rudi
could have faked the results obtained at the Institut Métapsychique in
Paris, by freeing an arm, he can hardly expect to be taken seriously.
The
foolishness of such a suggestion will be obvious to anybody who reads Dr
Osty's report Les Pouvoirs inconnus de l'Esprit sur la Matière, or
even Mr Besterman's summary of it in Proceedings S.P.R., xl. 433
ff. To mention only one objection out of many, Mr Price does not even
allude to the clamped gauze screen, 5 ft. 6 ins. in height, which
separated the medium from the infra-red apparatus at many successful
sittings.

My own experience of Rudi's phenomena is
entirely in favour of their genuineness, but I realise that anyone whose
experience may be of a contrary kind is entitled to say so, provided he
states his case fairly and bases it on evidence that will bear scrutiny. Before, however, Mr Price brought his accusation, no serious or detailed
charge of fraud had been brought against Rudi personally.
He has never
been one of these mediums who are only willing to sit for particular
patrons of their own selection, and his readiness to accept any condition
and submit to any experiment ought to make his sitters particularly
careful as to the evidence on which they base a charge of fraud and to the
manner in which they present their case. I submit that neither the
evidence Mr Price adduces nor his method of presentation is such as to
make his charges count for anything against a medium with Rudi's record.

What does emerge damaged from Mr Price's
report is his own reputation as controller, conductor of investigations
and critic. Mr Price asks us to consider how much of Rudi's phenomena,
produced in different series of sittings, can, after this "exposure,"
still be considered genuine. I am quite prepared to
face that problem, but what exercises me, and perhaps other readers of the
report, still more, is what weight is now to be attached to any report,
whether positive or negative in its conclusions, or any phenomena,
produced under Mr Price's direction or control or recorded by him?

ADDENDUM BY THEODORE BESTERMAN.

As I may not have any other opportunity of
expressing my views in public, I desire here to say in the clearest terms
that I cordially agree with the criticisms of Mr Price's "exposure" of
Rudi Schneider made above by Lord Charles Hope, in the Revue
Métapsychique (March-April 1933, pp. 110 if.) by Dr Osty, and in
Bulletin XX of the Boston S.P.R. (pp. 86 ff). by Dr Prince.
Quite apart
from other and important considerations, Mr Price's report appears to me
to be in itself quite worthless as an exposure. It can have no effect on
Rudi Schneider's standing.